Goldman Sachs 3Q17

The pipeline, as you noted in equity underwriting is strong also in our conversations with clients on the advisory side. There’s no sense of slowdown. We’re seeing a pickup in client dialogue, particularly I would note in technology, media, telecom, as well as industrials and natural resources. And so, it’s strong for all of the reasons that you would expect that CEOs are confident, equity market support valuations and acquisition currencies, the financing markets are open, the overall levels of financing costs are relatively low by historical standards. That’s all constructive on tax reform which you also mentioned, that is certainly a part of our engagement with clients. And I will also note however that clients, it seems to us, have moved towards saying, well, tax reform would be a good thing but it’s not stopping us from considering strategic acquisitions and sales right now.

Fed unprecedented but good backdrop

note that there’s a positive backdrop, so the U.S. economy is performing, there’s improving GDP growth depending on who you talk to, the U.S. is at or perhaps even beyond full employment. And at the same time, all of this unwinding quantitative easing is unprecedented territory, never happened before. So, you could see volatility and spikes showing up in this process, simply because it’s never happened before. We don’t see duly unwind risk priced into the markets. You could imagine of all spikes that that client confidence make market making difficult, you could also imagine a positive scenario with modest fall, more conviction, more activity, all of these things could be catalysts for the FICC business, rising inflation, any changes in central bank policies against the expected trajectory, clarity on U.S. policies of all kinds, tax, obviously regulation, also infrastructure, all of these things you could see as better catalysts.